The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Most types of multimedia content today are displayed and viewed on stationary two-dimensional displays. For example, movies, television shows, video games, etc., typically are consumed by viewers on a stationary display such as a television screen, computer display, or mobile device display. However, the recent popularization of powerful virtual reality (VR) devices has ushered in the creation of new types of immersive media where rather than viewing content on a simple two-dimensional display, viewers can experience various types of multimedia content in simulated three-dimensional environments, as if they were within the environment directly.
One popular type of device for consuming VR content is a head mounted display (HMD) device, where an HMD provides with a view of a three-dimensional VR environment. To simulate the experience of looking around a three-dimensional environment, an HMD typically includes displays embedded in a wearable visor that enable a user to “see” the environment, and head tracking components that enable and look around at different parts of the environment. Other types of VR devices that can be used with or in place of an HMD include hand tracking devices, body tracking devices, and other devices which enable viewers to interact with VR environments in a variety of ways. For example, a viewer wearing an HMD may rotate his or head to dynamically view different parts of an environment, hand tracking devices may be used to move simulated arms and to “touch” objects within a VR environment, and so forth, thereby simulating the experience of interacting with a real world environment.
The process of creating multimedia content for consumption by such VR devices presents a number of challenges, such as arranging and controlling objects within a three-dimensional space. Other challenges include defining and manipulating interactive characters. For example, a VR content creator may desire to create an environment that includes one or more human characters, fantastical characters, anthropomorphic characters, and/or other types of characters to make the environment more engaging. One way to make such characters feel convincing to the viewer is to make the characters look as lifelike as possible. However, the illusion of reality in the VR environment may be lessened if the characters appear oblivious to the viewer's presence in the environment (e.g., when the viewer approaches a character, touches a character, speaks to a character, etc.).